Yes, one of the things that steers people away from medical work is the arrogance of certain people in the profession. So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...) Along with that and the high malprac. insurance rates, managed care B.S., understaffed wards and EDs, insane hours and the constant threats of lawsuits, is it any wonder the world of medical care is growing ever-more critically-short of doctors and similar medical practitioners? No surprise at all.

I've worked on a doctor's original source for a EMR, a fun input parameter for a method was ArrayList, each item in the ArrayList was type object[] where each item in object[] was some base type, mind you each object[] was of different length.

I don't work with Access, so here goes a "n00b question":
If you declare a boolean as the PK for a table, the DB should limit you to 2 entries, right? Does Access check constraints and FK's at insert time?

I run into this type of thing a lot for the companies I do work for. Both are run by a doctor who thinks he knows everything about software also. I was developing a spec doc which included a definition of an XML file structure. He came to me the next day and was challenging how I created it. He said he started an online tutorial on XML the day before and it didn't look right to him. This from the man how for a year and half now keeps saying to me 'I thought we were going to program that in XML' or 'can't we just program this in XML'. To which I reply every time that XML isn't a programming language and that we are using C# or ColdFusion. He also insists a previous app was 'coded' in XML, when in reality is had nothing to do with XML - it was a C++ app with Access DB

I don't work with Access, so here goes a "n00b question":
If you declare a boolean as the PK for a table, the DB should limit you to 2 entries, right? Does Access check constraints and FK's at insert time?

Yes, you can only have two rows in that table. (I just tested it.) Bets on whether they were "Found" and "Not Found"? Would make sense in a table called "Lookup".

I don't work with Access, so here goes a "n00b question":
If you declare a boolean as the PK for a table, the DB should limit you to 2 entries, right? Does Access check constraints and FK's at insert time?

Yes, you can only have two rows in that table. (I just tested it.) Bets on whether they were "Found" and "Not Found"? Would make sense in a table called "Lookup".

I've worked with medical specialists and doctors before, and some of them are truly the world's more pretentious asses, but many of them are perfectly willing to accept that others are specialists in their own fields.

Most medical specialists would send for another specialist if something medical came up that was outside their field. The endocrynologist in the story, for example, would definitely call in a cardiologist if he had a patient who had a heart issue being affected by an endocrine problem.

Of course, my response to, "after all, it's not endocrynology" would have been, "yes, after all, computer code is considerably more complex than pituitary extract".

Why do people come to experts in a field when they aren't interested in letting said expert perform their job!! I can't count the number of times that I've had folks with little to no training or experience in programming and/or design tell me how to do my job. Some times I wish I could return the "favor" but, alas, unlike K.G., I'm still a cog in the machine these days.

. . .So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...). . .

You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

Yes, one of the things that steers people away from medical work is the arrogance of certain people in the profession. So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...) Along with that and the high malprac. insurance rates, managed care B.S., understaffed wards and EDs, insane hours and the constant threats of lawsuits, is it any wonder the world of medical care is growing ever-more critically-short of doctors and similar medical practitioners? No surprise at all.

I have a friend who's pre-med, and describes the first two years of her pre-med experience as "academic hazing". While I appreciate that people really don't want unqualified doctors, there are incentives to artificially constrict the supply to help keep doctors scarce... and drive up salaries...

I had to deal with similar BS at a previous job working for a municipality. We had a police chief that moonlighted as an IT consultant and a fire chief that knew enough to be dangerous. I would routinely get calls from the fire dept lackeys telling me that there was a problem and that the chief had "already looked at it" which generally made the problem worse.

for example: we installed a second computer. they said nothing about putting it on the network, but the fire chief went out and purchased a router-switch from walmart and hooked it up to use for both those computers. Needless to say, that caused some problems with software that was mapped directly to the IP of the first computer. Who gets called to clean up this mess that he created? the alleged "inept IT department".

If someone hires me as a specialist, I would think it's because they believe I know what I'm doing. What's with the micromanagement then? Just tell me what you want and let go!

I find that I share a kinship with doctors though. We both have friends/family/acquaintances/strangers approach us outside of work to have a "quick look" at problems with their health/computers.

As a Java/C++ programmer, people somehow think it's appropriate to ask me to spend 2 hours cleaning viruses and spyware off their computer for them. Free of charge of course.

As a network admin, I learned long ago the only possible solution for this: Tell them about AV/AS software and if that doesn't work, keep their computer for a month if they bring it to me. If they complain, my response is: "Well, at least you got what you paid for."

. . .So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...). . .

You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

I absolutely agree. The braces issues are minor compared to the choice of editor.

In fairness, some doctors do know what they're doing with software. Anyone else remember Dr David Nye's E editor for DOS? (Came with TASM source code and a config program, was 6.5k in size yet gave VDE a run for its money. My favourite piece of software ever.)

(edit: Just seen the comment immediately above mine - how apposite...)

I was once asked by a doctor to get involved in developing a patient management system with him. He already had a working example using Filemaker on his Mac. He was a real fan of the Mac. He showed me his application and even had me sign a non-disclosure agreement to do so.

I did no take the path of critiquing his design or code. I barely even looked at them. Instead I explained all of the logistics and effort involved in developing, deploying, and supporting a piece of retail software. He had already offered to allow me to come on as a full partner in the company he intended to form for developing it. I declined, saying I would rather just consult as needed. I made it clear that I thought he was up against more than he realized. I did not try to make him look stupid or anything, just made clear what all is really involved.

He later told my boss, who had brought the two of us together as mutual acquantences, that I had been the perfect person to speak to about it. To my knowledge he dropped the idea completely.

One of the reasons I believe software developement should be a licensed profession. i.e. You have to pass a government exam before you're allowed to practice in certain areas.

This sort of behavior is not unique to engineers or doctors. My first boss at my present company was an example. Guy new C++ decently. Had me work on a project in C#, one of my expertises. Tried to tell me how to do the project (micromanaging implementation, not overall design). Could not believe that certain C++ patterns just did not effectively translate to C#. Oh well. He got fired 8 months into my tenure.

. . .So much talent is wasted on "brightest kid in the room" competition and pettiness the likes of which is rarely seen in other lines of work (apart perhaps from the "World of Art"...). . .

You obviously haven't spent much time around programmers! For whatever reason, we see absolutely nothing wrong with arguing over the correct position of curly braces for hours. The stuff programmers argue over (often on this site) is extremely petty.

I absolutely agree. The braces issues are minor compared to the choice of editor.

I've worked with medical specialists and doctors before, and some of them are truly the world's more pretentious asses, but many of them are perfectly willing to accept that others are specialists in their own fields.

But those aren't the ones that start "software companies" which are the ultra-geniuses. Everything involving computers to them will only take 2-3 days tops. If it takes more than that offshore it to India and have 500 people working on it at the same time, cause that's bound to work.

Gsquared:

Of course, my response to, "after all, it's not endocrynology" would have been, "yes, after all, computer code is considerably more complex than pituitary extract".

Faculty is worse. I used to be the "interim BD manager" for about 6 months years ago. It came to a rapid end when a dean from one of the top engineering schools pitched a FEA package that required users to put in material properties and other variables as 5 digit numbers (e.g. 12345 -- oak, 43215 -- high tensile steel, 34234 -- chrome steel, 32452 -- I beam, 67324 -- U beam). The GUI consisted of 50 text boxes on a page.

I patiently explained to him that this would not be acceptable for a commercial product a few times without any effect ("I wrote this and I can use it."). Thankfully I slipped by referring to the developer as a idiot in a meeting with the CEO. Two weeks later we hired a new BD manager and I was able to do my normal 50 hour/week job.

One of the reasons I believe software developement should be a licensed profession. i.e. You have to pass a government exam before you're allowed to practice in certain areas.

I'm quite glad that it's not. Do you honestly expect the government to come up with a set of questions that isn't language specific, or out of date by the time people actually get to take the test?

Besides, becoming a "licensed professional" (architect, medical doctor, lawyer) requires schooling in addition to passing the test. I've never been one for school, mostly because I learn at my own pace, typically by reading and experimenting. Lectures and the like have never helped me.

One of the reasons I believe software developement should be a licensed profession.

Living in the Boston area, I've heard of WTF (as well as Oh, Sh!t!) from licensed engineers. Holding up concrete ceiling panels (yes, ceiling panels) from bolts GLUED into concrete. It is supposed to work when done properly, but this is asking construction workers to be very careful with lots of bolts. And of course, the test parameters were adjusted so the work done wouldn't have to be re-done at contractor expense.
At least, when my stuff fails, nobody dies.